This is what I looked like on my way to the USA. My nose was red and runny, my throat was sore and I was tired because I didn’t sleep on the night before the trip. Despite all that, I couldn’t believe we’re finally on that plane – the vacation seemed like something I’ve been planning for months but isn’t actually going to work out at the end.

But there we were sitting on the plane, after a loooooong walk through Ben-Gurion airport’s new terminal, which I found quite boring and very inefficient (It seemed like the whole staff was new and had no idea what they were doing, and not just the terminal). I wanted to bring my new knitting project with me on the plane (a baby sweater for a pregnant friend), and followed all the instructions I could find on the net about how to convince the security people that knitting needles are not a deadly weapon – but the security guy made me pack the knitting along with the regular suitcase and send it in the cargo. There go my plans for the next 12 hours.

But as soon as we got on the plane and sat down, the lady who was sitting next to me took one look at my scarf and asked "What yarn did you use for this?". I have no idea how, but she knew immediately that it was hand-knit. And the next 12 hours were spent talking about yarn, learning new stitches (I found out that, in a pinch, 2 pens can function perfectly as knitting needles), discussing the quality of tissues and the future of today’s youth.

By the time we got off the plane in Newark, She gave me these:

Finger puppets! and good tissue!!

In return, I gave her the last ball of yarn I had from my scarf, which I was planning to use as sleeves for the baby sweater. I guess I will have to buy some new yarn – poor me 😉

We landed in Newark and went to get our new best friend for the next 3 days – our rental car and GPS.
We now call the car "Jack" – a good american name for a good (and huge) American Chevrolet, and we call the GPS "The Ripper" due to its tendency to get us to strange places that we never wanted to get to, like evening drives through the slums of New Jersey.

The Ripper, in Ripping mode.

We drove for 3 hours through rush hour traffic, and eventually reached my aunt and uncle’s house in CT.
Finally – a good cup of tea.

After visiting Ruthi and Sherwin we got to the hotel, which turned out to be great, with a comfortable bed, nice clean bath, and most important – Internet connection.

In our room waited this package from My cousin Amaranth and her boyfriend Brad, who’s wedding we came here for.

About the sheep

My name is Ayelet.
I'm a designer, illustrator, mom to baby Toam (born in May 2008), knitter, somewhat-crafty, and mostly trying to figure out how everything fits together.

I try to live ecologically but sensibly. I'll recycle plastic for the rest of my life if you promise to never take away my clothes dryer.

This blog was given to me as a gift from my husband, Ez, on my 27th birthday and I've been using it since then as a sort of think tank/storage space for my thoughts, ideas, illustrations and crafty projects.